To a Black and Tan Coonhound owner, the bay of their dog is down right musical, but to the owner who “runs” their coonhounds, it’s informative, as well. In a sense, it’s a little like a game of “Marco Polo” played in a swimming pool in which the person who is “it” uses acoustics to gather information about the other players. Each dog has a distinctive bay or “bugle” recognizable to its owner, and its timbre reveals if the dog is on the chase, has hit a cold scent or a hot one, or has brought the quarry “to tree.”

Early in a chase, Coonhounds will start out open-mouthed and long voiced, but as they get close to a tree, their voices take on a pitch of urgency: short and sharp “aroos.” If their prey is “treed,” the hounds will bay more slowly, and pause between “notes” to listen for the hunter’s approach. According to tradition, only one dog in a pack should “give mouth” at the end of a fruitful treeing. The other dogs may whine and dance around a bit, but properly trained coonhounds wait until their master arrives.

The whole “culture” of hound vocalizations has a phraseology all its own: “Giving mouth,” “barking treed”, and “barking up,” to name a few.

We always defer to breed experts, and we welcome the input of Black and Tan owners in the section below! For now, we conclude with William W. Ramsey’s “Coonhound Eulogy:”

“If you have known the music of coonhounds on a trail and heard the excitement in their voices when they strike, and seen their eagerness and determination when they tree, if you have seen their courage and bravery…and witnessed their resolve to never quit, you know there has to be a God to make an animal like that.”